A while back, over on Aikido-L (for those who remember it!) we were discussing the most important principles of Aikido. I ended up boiling the question down even further and wondering what the most essential principles of budo are. These would be principles that are essential no matter what art you studying. My first one is structure, and I wrte this blog post in regards to it.

Linear ranking, I think is far too simplistic to capture an important aspect of the relationships between fundamentals.

Like five-element theory, I Ching, or ichirei sangen shikon hachiriki all important components interact with the others -- and in multiple dimensions, and in patterned ways but with no set orders of priority.

If I were to list five (not magical, that's just all I have in mind at the moment) I'd say: